it's an explicitly anticommunist weimar era symbol used today by well-meaning ideologically incoherent dumdums
this post was submitted on 17 Jun 2024
46 points (100.0% liked)
askchapo
22845 readers
209 users here now
Ask Hexbear is the place to ask and answer ~~thought-provoking~~ questions.
Rules:
-
Posts must ask a question.
-
If the question asked is serious, answer seriously.
-
Questions where you want to learn more about socialism are allowed, but questions in bad faith are not.
-
Try !feedback@hexbear.net if you're having questions about regarding moderation, site policy, the site itself, development, volunteering or the mod team.
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
File footage of the head of the Social Democrat Party after the 1933 election
It has a loathsome provenance.
SPD collaborators, who went to great lengths to suppress the KPD and its affiliated groups while the SPD were in government yet turning a blind eye to the fascist paramilitaries, developed the three arrows. You don't need to be a semiotician to interpret their primary target:
You also don't need to be a historian to recognize that they collaborated with an arch-monarchist to install Nazi party leaders at all the levers of power in the Weimar Republic in its final days and that this vindicates the argument that the SPD saw communists as their primary political opponent.
Unless you see that third arrow being pointed in the opposite direction as a way of reclaiming the symbol, I'd give anyone who touts the three arrows a wide berth; either they don't know the history of the symbol they have adopted (which is itself a big yikes) or they do know its history and they have consciously adopted it because of that fact (which is a bigger yikes).
Lookin' at you Dan Arrows on YouTube, who has a 6-figure Patreon income despite having not produced a single video for over a year now.
Unless you see that third arrow being pointed in the opposite direction as a way of reclaiming the symbol
It doesn't come from a good place, and I wouldn't recommend it if you're picking a symbol for your new communist group, but if someone who supports communism is using it communistically, you should just trust them on that. It's not a magic seal that secretly corrupts their intent. It's just a symbol, meanings can change over time.
As far as I'm aware it's only been used by anti-communists.
Anecdotally it seems to be used mostly by baby leftists still figuring out their political ideology and ends up being a crossroads where one end leads to anarchism and the other to NATOists depending on whether they actually go outside and do antifascist praxis.
Succdem trash, one of the things the arrows point towards is the hammer and sickle, so idk why any commie group would ever use it.
It is explicitly anticommunist.
Yeah I dislike it because it is explicitly anticommunist, made by people who didn't realize that anti-communism only helps fascists, and look where they ended up. I don't get how it's become an "antifascist" symbol and think it really doesn't belong in our library of icons
Socdem trash for sure, it og purpose was anticommunism and its still used by socdems nowdays to mean that
i've seen a version of it with the third arrow pointing the other way, but other than that no
quick mock up i made in paint net:
I think this was on my driving license exam..
Bad because of its association with the SPD in Germany using it as an expression of "both sides" style anti-communism ( "we oppose all forms of authoritarianism, now off to snitch out Rosa and the KPD to the freikorps so they all get murdered!"), which helped usher in Nazism.
IMO, if a symbol has any significant popularity among western leftists in particular, it probably sucks.
Living in a country where even this would be too radical for sdp I loathe it
It might not be rational, but I hate you more if you pretend to like me out of politeness instead of just saying it with your chest
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Living in a country where even this would be too radical for sdp I loathe it
Succdem trash
in the SPD electoralism webgame you get to change the anticommunist arrow to something else. i think it's fairly mutable as a symbol because it just says 'we're against three things' and you could certainly change what those things are
but painfully online liberals that para-socially(?) para-historically(?) identify with SPD have been using it these past few years so i think it'd need a comprehensive rehabilitation before i'm not 
at someone using it
It was common for me to see it in anarchy world, but, knowing better now, I wouldn't be a fan of others using it so you're right to jab.
I know a lot of anarchists primarily think it's an antifascist symbol, without realizing that or fully understanding how it's also anticommunist.
Only person I’ve known to have stuff with it was a Zionist and rabidly anti communist
Definitely socdem trash, but I know a lot of well meaning early commies who have stuff with it on it because they only know it as antifascism. Hell when I was younger I got it tattooed on myself for that reason (still debating covering it with something else, ideas welcome).
It's one of those things where the meaning has shifted somewhat over time I think, but I still think it should be moved away from.
In Poland "Czerwoni" use it.